The Economist propels record 1.2m subscribers

The Economist had its most successful year financially since 2016. Last year with profit up and record revenue, the magazine and digital publisher said subscriber numbers were ‘robust’, totaling 1,185,000 despite a ‘sluggish’ start to the financial year in April 2021 which it put down to a ‘slow news cycle’ following a busy period of the COVID-19 pandemic and US election. This compares to 1,122,000 subscriptions at the end of March 2021 and 1,088,000 in 2020. The past figures have been restated as The Economist now includes the Espresso app, Global Business Review app and group subscriptions within its subscriber counts.